A popular form of artificial bait (i.e., a lure) for fishermen is a device that consists primarily of a piece of narrow wire, usually stiff piano wire having a diameter of about 0.040 inch and having a length of about five to eight inches. The wire is bent at a point near its middle to define a generally "V"-shaped member. When the "V"-shaped member is inverted, the two depending sections of wire have the appearance of two elongated legs, and they will be referred to herein as legs. The distal end of a fishing line is routinely connected to the apex of the V, so that the lure can be pulled through the water by a fisherman to simulate the movement of a minnow or a small fish that might be attractive to a large fish that is to be caught. At the distal end of one of the legs is a body or "head" and a downwardly extending hook whose presence is generally concealed by a plurality of narrow and flexible strips that, in toto, define a sort of depending skirt around the hook. At the lower end of the other leg is secured a plate or blade, usually having a slightly concave shape (as seen from the side) and often called a spoon because of the similarity in appearance to the shallow bowl of a teaspoon. As seen in a plan view, the plate may be said to usually have a generally elliptical shape, and it is often brightly painted or made of shiny metal.
A swivel connector is used to connect the forward end of the spoon to the second leg, so that the spoon will swivel or "spin" as the lure is pulled through the water. This spinning characteristic of a moving spoon justifies the name that is given to such lures, namely, spinnerbaits. An exemplary spinnerbait is shown in FIG. 3 of U.S. Pat. No. 4,999,943 to Crabtree entitled "Seat Pedestal Lure Container." A system for storing spinnerbaits using see-through packets or envelopes is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,927,016 to Fuller entitled "Spinner Bait Box And Storage System."
The wide angle between the two wire legs of a spinnerbait, which is often about 80 degrees, usually causes the lures to be somewhat awkward to handle when they are being put into and taken from a storage place. And if several loose spinnerbaits are hastily thrown into a pile in the bottom of an ordinary tackle box, they frequently become entangled with one another, such that it is often hard to pull one of them from a pile without also lifting one or two other ones at the same time. Therefore, it is an object of this invention to provide a storage device for spinnerbaits (or spinning lures) that will permit a single one to be selectively removed from a storage receptacle in a quick and easy manner--without disturbing others that are stored in adjacent receptacles.
Another object is to provide a holding system for spinnerbaits in which they are held in place by a force other than gravity, such that accidentally inverting a container will not result in spilling all of the contained spinnerbaits on the floor.
A further object is to provide a way of "bulk" loading of a plurality of spinnerbaits into a container for transportation to a favorite fishing hole, and the spinnerbaits having previously been categorized by color, size, blade type, etc.
These and other objects will be apparent from consideration of the following disclosure and reference to the drawing provided herewith.